Indexing and abstracting databases are key to producing good, robust research but they can be daunting and  confusing and it is tempting to stick with the familiarity of Google and Google Scholar.  To get some advice on  searches for your assignments, come along to a search skills surgery, where you can pick up some tips and develop your confidence in using A&I databases.

The surgery, run by Tara your subject librarian, will take place on:

Tuesday 9th December 11:00-12:00 Room G31

This is a drop in session so come along at any time within the hour, armed with any troublesome searches and questions you have.

We’ll primarily be looking at the following databases as they’re key to DIS:

• LISA  – Index of journal articles in librarianship and information science, including archives and records management, publishing and some material relating to Digital Humanities. Includes abstracts from over 440 periodicals from more than 68 countries and in more than 20 different languages.
• Library and Information Science Source – Content includes full text for more than 460 publications and indexing for hundreds of high-quality journals, as well as books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage encompasses librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more.
• INSPEC – a bibliographic information database covering the fields of physics, electronics, computing, control engineering and information technology with more than 7.7 million records taken from 3,500 technical and scientific journals and 1,500 conference proceedings.
• SCOPUS – multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources.

If you can’t make this session please feel free to drop me an email with your queries.

Please note these sessions are only open to students in the UCL Department of Information Studies

Indexing and abstracting databases are key to producing good, robust research but they can be daunting and  confusing and it is tempting to stick with the familiarity of Google and Google Scholar.  To get some advice on  searches for your assignments, come along to a search skills surgery, where you can pick up some tips and develop your confidence in using A&I databases.

The surgeries will be run by Tara, your subject librarian and will take place on:

Tuesday 2nd December 14:00-15:00 Room G31

Tuesday 9th December 14:00-15:00 Room G31

The surgery will run as a drop in session so come along at any time within the hour, armed with any troublesome searches and questions you have.

We’ll primarily be looking at the following databases as they’re key to DIS:

• LISA  – Index of journal articles in librarianship and information science, including archives and records management, publishing and some material relating to Digital Humanities. Includes abstracts from over 440 periodicals from more than 68 countries and in more than 20 different languages.
• Library and Information Science Source – Content includes full text for more than 460 publications and indexing for hundreds of high-quality journals, as well as books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage encompasses librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more.
• INSPEC – a bibliographic information database covering the fields of physics, electronics, computing, control engineering and information technology with more than 7.7 million records taken from 3,500 technical and scientific journals and 1,500 conference proceedings.
• SCOPUS – multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources.

Looking forward to seeing you there!   If you can’t make either of these surgeries, please feel free to drop me an email with your queries.

Please note these sessions are only open to students in the UCL Department of Information Studies

Please click the link below to see a list of books recently added to the Archives and Librarianship collections in the UCL Science Library. Please note that the Librarianship collection includes books on publishing, digital humanities and information science, and the Archives collection includes records management. For information on availability please check the library catalogue. (more…)

Work is underway in the Science Library this week to replace shelving in the the reading room housing the librarianship and archives collections. The room will remain open but there may be some disruption, and access to collections may be restricted for short periods. If you have any problems accessing the materials you need please contact your subject librarian.

The Finch report on expanding access to research publications was released today and has been widely reported in the press. The report recommends the UK  should “embrace the transition to open access, and accelerate the process in a measured way.”.

UCL is already making efforts to ensure that its research is openly available:

UCL Discovery

UCL’s 2012 Publications Policy includes a mandate that UCL researchers must deposit their research in our institutional repository UCL Discovery, as far as copyright restrictions allow this.

Discovery is a large database of UCL research including journal articles, books chapters, theses, digital web resources and more. For further information including instructions on how to deposit your own research see http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/.

New journal publishing software

UCL has also developed its own software platform to support academic colleagues who wish to publish their own journals. This new software is being successfully tested with the Journal of Bentham Studies.

The software scheme is known as overlay journal software.  A presentation layer sits on top of UCL Discovery (where the papers are stored) and allows the academic editors of the journal to select papers and publish issues of the journal in the normal way.

There is no charge for using this service, which is offered by UCL Library Services to support research, knowledge transfer and public engagement in UCL. If you are interested, or would like a demonstration of the new software tools, please contact Paul Ayris.

Recovery of Open Access publishing costs

Academic colleagues can recover costs for Open Access publishing from research council grants. These costs can be recovered whilst the grant is still active. It should be noted that it is not possible to recover publication costs once the grant has ceased.

Special arrangements are in place for meeting the Open Access publication costs of those academic colleagues who are funded by the Wellcome Trust.

For further information on claiming open access fees please contact us.

Ben Roberts, Wellcome Images

If you are preparing to write a dissertation this summer you may find the following resources useful.

MetaLib & UCL Explore

MetaLib and UCL Explore can be a useful way of gaining an initial overview of a subject and identifying key databases, journals and articles for your literature review. MetaLib allows you to search a set of databases identified for Information Studies and/or create your own sets of database to search. A guide to using MetaLib is available (PDF).

UCL Explore is a new system which allows users to search across several library resources simultaneously, so you can identify books, journals, articles etc. all in one search.

Bibliographic Databases

UCL subscribes to a number of abstracting and indexing databases allowing you to search the contents of a range of journals and identify useful material on specific topics. For a list of databases for Information Studies click here.

E-Books

The library has a growing collection of electronic books. We are doing our best to get all of these listed on the library catalogue so they appear alongside print books, but the following collections have not yet been fully catalogued:

• Safari Large collection of electronic books relating to technology, digital media, and business. May be of particular interest to Information Science, and Digital Humanities students.

• Synthesis Digital Library A collection of lecture style books, primarily for Computer Science and Engineering but including titles of interest to Information Science students, particularly the series on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services.

Guides

Several resources are available to guide you through the dissertation process, including the libraries guides to finding material for essays & dissertations and referencing (click here to see full list of guides) and our training in moodle which includes guidance on finding information and referencing. There are also a number of books available in the library to help, e.g.:

•  How to write dissertations & project reports / Kathleen McMillan and Jonathan Weyers. GEOGRAPHY A 9 MCM

•  How to write a master’s thesis / Yvonne N. Bui. HIGHER EDUCATION 9 BUI [Main Library]

•  Internet research skills : how to do your literature search and find research information online / Niall Ó Dochartaigh. COMPUTER SCIENCE H 30 ODO

• Succeeding with your master’s dissertation : a step-by-step handbook / John Biggam. –  2nd ed. HIGHER EDUCATION 9 BIG [Main Library]

• They say, I say : the moves that matter in academic writing / Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein. GEOGRAPHY A 9 GRA

If you have any questions on dissertation preparation, referencing etc. please contact me. GOOD LUCK!

Please click the link below to see a list of books recently added to the Archives and Librarianship collections in the UCL Science Library. Please note that the Librarianship collection includes books on publishing, digital humanities and information science, and the Archives collection includes records management. For information on availability please check the library catalogue.

(more…)

My name is Ruth Russell and I am the subject librarian for the Department of Information Studies. I am writing this, my first blog post, to introduce myself as a new regular contributor. I’ll be including details here of new books and electronic resources, upcoming library training sessions, relevant news about the library buildings, opening hours etc. plus other information that I think may be useful to DIS students. My role as a subject librarian includes managing the library collections, providing training on information skills and liaising with departments in order to ensure that the library is meeting their needs. I hope that this blog will help me to communicate with DIS and ensure that we are doing everything we can to support teaching and research within the department.

I’ve met many of you already at library inductions but for those who don’t know me I’ve included a photograph (n.b. I am usually without sunglasses when at work) so if you see me around the library and you have any questions or suggestions please do come and say hi. I’m generally around to answer queries during office hours and can be contacted by phone (020 7679 2634) or email  or you can pop into my office on the 3^rd floor of the Science Library, room 314. I’ll be back on here after Easter with some tips for dissertation preparation and lists of new resources, but in the mean time wishing you all a wonderful break.